Hurricanes are one of many natural disasters that seriously affect people all over the world. In particular, hurricanes pose a serious threat to coastlines and their surrounding eco-systems. The loss of shorelines and coastal areas due to storm activity can be a devastating event. Almost every year, several areas suffer from significant casualties and damage caused by hurricane winds, rain and storm surge.
Hurricanes and other natural disasters have the ability to destroy farmland and vegetation, which is a vital resource to humans. It becomes necessary to protect existing cultivated areas and to replace those that have been destroyed. This can, however, be a difficult task. The present invention addresses this problem.
Another significant problem caused by hurricanes and other natural disasters is the disruption and/or destruction of the underwater eco-system surrounding shorelines. The natural habitat of marine life and the marine life itself can be decimated and measures are, therefore, needed to restore the habitat to attract marine life back into areas surrounding devastated shorelines. The present invention also addresses this problem.
Marshlands adjacent susceptible coastal regions provide at least some form of protection against the harsh environments caused by hurricanes. Typically, marshlands offer a first line of defense for populated areas against the wave energy of a hurricane. The marshlands act as a barrier to absorb, redirect or dissipate the wave energy so that by the time it reaches a populated area its force is significantly reduced thereby limiting the damaged inflicted on the populated area.
However, on occasion the force of the wave energy is such that marshlands are themselves swept away or destroyed leaving little, or no, protection to the populated areas. Clearly, this is a cause for concern.
Although measures have been taken to resurrect destroyed marshlands in areas such as coastal Louisiana following hurricane Katrina, these have been found to have major drawbacks. This is because in order for marshlands to be effective at dissipating wave energy, large stretches are needed to reduce a large storm surge to a more or less harmless level. However, in order to create large stretches, vast amounts of sediment are necessary which makes this process less feasible in terms of cost and logistics.
Coastal erosion caused by wave energy or other natural forces is a particularly daunting problem for a seaside city. The subsidence of the coastline can be catastrophic in such places and, therefore, it is important that these places are adequately protected.
Coastlines have thus been lined with gabion structures to inhibit subsidence thereof, but the gabion structures are generally square and form a flat surface which faces the oncoming wave energy. The flat surface tends to finds it difficult to redirect and dissipate the wave energy, and instead experiences the full impact of the wave. Indeed, if the wave energy is of sufficient strength, for instance, or if it collides with the gabion faces often enough, it is possible that the gabion structure will become damaged and will require very regular maintenance and repair. This can be labor intensive and costly.
From the discussion that is to follow, it will become apparent how the present invention addresses the aforementioned deficiencies while providing numerous additional advantages not hitherto contemplated or possible with known constructions.